


you're [a] work of modern art and I want more

by sandpapersnowman



Series: Tumblr Prompts: Preacher [4]
Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Blood Drinking, Broken Bones, F/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7616584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandpapersnowman/pseuds/sandpapersnowman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m not gonna let you go kill someone’s farm animal if you can get enough blood from me,” she interrupts, matter-of-fact and like her heart isn’t racing with fear and anticipation and a weird sort of excitement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're [a] work of modern art and I want more

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ItsClydeBitches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsClydeBitches/gifts).



> another prompt!! katie gave me the separate dialogue prompts 'you taste like heaven', 'cuddle?' and 'you're so small', and because i'm a Sneaky Ho i combined them all
> 
> on tumblr [here](http://sandpapersnowman.tumblr.com/post/148140644184/)!! title from the wombats' [Flowerball](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/wombats/flowerball.html) lmao

“You look like an ant from up here,” he calls, and she jumps from the sudden voice before she looks up at him. She doesn’t know why he’s on top of the church, but she’s sure the empty bottle of something on the church grass is probably half the reason why.

“Yeah? You look like an idiot from down here.”

“What was that? I didn’t hear you, did you say I look ‘like a devishly handsome man I would love to--’”

The shingle he’s putting most of his weight on slips under him, and he hits the ground what feels like an hour later.

He hits his head and can’t see anything but fake, not-actually-the-sky stars for a moment. The first thing he sees is Tulip looking panicked and worried, leaning over him and shaking his head gently.

“Christ, Cass.”

He groans and tries to put his arm up to let her know he’s conscious, but he can’t move it. It’s broken in a few places, he thinks; it must have been what he landed on.

“‘M fine,” he mutters instead, and tries to focus his eyes more.

She’s all he can see, and he smiles despite the situation. God, she’s gorgeous. He could look at her all day.

Her worry fades and she smirks.

“I was right. You _are_ an idiot.”

She leans back, just sitting beside him in the grass now, and helps him sit up too.

He glances at his broken arm, which is _very_ obviously broken now that it’s not hidden under his torso, and the blood drains from her face.

“Uh.”

“Don’t worry,” he says quickly, because he doesn’t actually want her to worry about him even if he likes feeling like she cares. “Just need to get some blood in me, I’ll be right as rain again.”

She looks out at the horizon and frowns.

“You think you can make it to the hospital and back before the sun’s up?”

Cass looks out at it too.

Shit. She’s right. He can already see that stars fading toward the ground, space going gray where sunlight’s bleeding in and blocking it out. He might make it to the hospital before there’s enough sun to do damage, but not back.

“Shit,” he says out loud.

He could ask her for her blood, but… No. He couldn’t ask that of her, especially when he already asked too much of her before and she didn’t know better and thought he was dying.

Jesse, maybe? He’s still not completely sure if he thinks he was joking about the vampire thing, and honestly has no clue how he’d react to him both actually being one and also now asking to feed on him.

He grimaces. Livestock again, he guesses.

“D’you know the closest farm to here?”

Tulip looks at him like he’s lost his mind.

“Y’know, a farm. With animals. That bleed.”

“Lord, you’re not gonna go take down a horse like this, are you nuts?”

Cassidy shrugs.

“Gotta feed to heal, love. Unless you wanna make an offer, I gotta get going.”

He starts to stand and she helps him, but doesn’t let go of his intact arm once he’s steady.

“How much would it take?” she asks.

“What?”

“To heal you. How much blood do you need?”

Cassidy feels his dead lump of a heart jump into his throat at the idea, but he shakes his head.

“I can’t do that to you, Tulip, c’mon.”

“How much?” she asks again, face set into that stubborn look she gets.

He loves that look when it’s directed at anyone but him.

He sighs.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Not enough to kill you, but…?” He trails off. _Enough to be dangerous_.

She pulls on his wrist.

“Come on.”

She’s leading him toward the church.

“Tulip--”

“I’m not gonna let you go kill someone’s farm animal if you can get enough blood from me,” she interrupts, matter-of-fact and like her heart isn’t racing with fear and anticipation and a weird sort of excitement.

(It is. He can feel it where her fingers are on him, and he can smell the adrenaline starting to flood in her. He tries not to get excited either, but he already is. She can read people like the back of her own hand and there’s no way she’s going to miss the way he looks sucking at her wrist or arm or--he can dream--her neck.)

He swallows nervously and follows her in.

They sit at the same pews him and Jesse sit in when they drink together, late at night, and he’s sure he’ll regret that the next time they’re passing a bottle back and forth and he blurts out how Tulip saved his life again.

She sits him on the bench beside her and finally lets go of his arm.

“Well?”

 _Well what,_ he almost asks, then remembers she’s never done this. Right.

“I, uh. I can make a cut for you or I can just bite through. One’s gonna hurt a lot less than the other.”

She laughs, and this is the first time he thinks he’s seen her openly look nervous. She takes a small knife from her pocket and holds it out to him, then opens it when she remembers he’s only got one good arm at the moment.

Her hands shake when she does. He almost asks if she wants to back out, which is fine, but he can smell the adrenaline in her sweat. She _wants_ to do this. He doesn’t know if it’s because of him (he doubts it) or just to have the experience (that’s what his money’s on), but either way, she’s _in_.

He smiles a little knowing she’ll be getting something out of this, at least.

“Where should I…?” he asks, and trails off again, waving the knife vaguely at her.

“Anywhere’s fine,” she breathes, her voice hardly in it. “I mean. Anywhere visible,” she corrects, before Cassidy’s even gotten the chance to point out innuendo.

He wouldn’t have even if he’d caught it, but he laughs breathily too at her pointing it out.

He edges closer to her.

“Would your neck be alright?”

He holds the knife up, the tip not touching her skin but close enough he wonders if she can feel it just because she knows it’s there.

She nods and it brushes her skin, and she shivers.

She laughs at that, that she shivers. As far as she knows, he remembers, Cassidy hasn’t caught on to her silent excitement for this.

The blade’s at her skin now, but he hasn’t slid it yet.

“Y’know the movie thing about numbing vampire spit ‘n’ all that?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Dunno if it numbs but it’ll help heal it up. Anticoagulant or whatever.”

His mouth is hovering over the blade. The shock and adrenaline from falling has started wearing off, and his arm feels like it’s being ground to bits with every passing second.

“You ready?”

She doesn’t have room to nod anymore, so she whispers, “Do it,” instead.

She gasps when he digs the blade in and pulls it back, and his mouth is over the wound before it’s even started to flow.

It’s unreal.

Besides the fact that it’s been a while since he’s had fresh, human blood and gotten to take his time with it, and besides the fact that he’s always preferred the intimacy of drinking directly from someone, it’s _Tulip_. He can taste her adrenaline and excitement, can taste the cigarette she smoked on the way over, feels the blood spill onto his tongue quicker when her heartbeat catches up to the feeling of his mouth on her skin.

He drops the knife onto the bench in favor of snaking his good arm around her waist to support her when he leans into her harder. He thinks he moans against her neck, which means he probably did, but he feels the smallest noise from her too.

Christ. The idea that she’s enjoying being fed on heats him up like a walk in the sun. Could they do this again? Are they gonna _bond_ over this? Is she going to fall in love with him too?

“Not too hard,” she hisses, and he pulls away.

Shit. Yeah, he got a little overzealous.

“Sorry,” he sighs, and returns to the wound.

He pulled away just long enough that it started oozing down her collar, and after a split second of rationalizing she probably wouldn’t want her shirt stained with blood, he licks up her skin to catch it before it gets any further.

She twitches under him (when did she get under him? He guesses he leaned in harder than he thought) and one of her hands settles on the back of his head while he keeps going.

She can hear gross noises coming from his arm as flesh shifts and mends, and she shuts her eyes to keep herself from looking.

“It’s working,” she says, like she wasn’t quite sure it would.

Cassidy hums against her throat to acknowledge her, but he has no idea what she’s said. All he can hear is her heartbeat on his tongue, even faster now than it was.

Regretfully, he realizes, he’s going to have to stop soon. His arm’s just about fine and that’s where her offer ended, and he’s already taken enough she’ll be a bit dizzy standing after this.

He stays one more long second, savoring the taste on his tongue and how it clings to his teeth despite trying his hardest to be neat, and pulls away.

It’s not hard at all to make himself drool to help stop the bleeding. He drags his tongue over it a few more times, lapping up what’s still oozing out and making sure to coat it in his own saliva.

Once it’s stopped completely, he sits up again and her hand falls from where it’d ended up on the back of his neck. The wound on her throat won’t scar, but it’ll bruise up something awful for a couple days, he thinks. He blushes thinking of Tulip with something that looks like a hickey on her, and it being from _him_ , but he shakes the thought off.

“You okay?” he asks, voice hoarse, and helps her sit back up too. She’d been completely laid back on the pew, and despite her being low on blood, she still looks flushed.

“I’m fine,” she croaks. She clears her throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Cassidy smiles at her. She looks disoriented and bordering on disheveled, and above even the smug thought of _‘I did that’_ is a fondness for just how off-guard she looks.

“Thank you.”

She nods again, wincing a bit when it bothers the cut.

“No problem.” 

She clears her throat again and turns on the pew so she’s facing the rest of the church rather than facing him.

“If you need to do that again,” she starts, and then makes some kind of hand motion that’s trying too hard to be casual. “I’d rather you come to me than go kill something.”

Cassidy laughs.

“Yeah? Thanks,” he says again.

They both sit there in silence for a second. He bends his now-healed arm up, looking at the joints move when he balls his hand into a fist and then stretches his fingers out.

Eventually, he watches her wipe the knife off on her jeans and fold it down so she can put it back in her pocket.

“Sun’ll be up soon,” she finally mutters. The church isn’t as dark as it had been, she’s right, and he needs to hole up in the attic soon.

“Time to hit the hay, I guess.” He stands up and stretches, feeling soreness where he’d broken some ribs maybe, pulled a couple muscles maybe? and those had healed with her blood too.

“Yeah,” she agrees, and stands too.

He nods toward the stairs to the attic.

“Wanna go cuddle, or?”

She snorts and shoves his shoulder as she passes him.

“See you later, Cass.”

**Author's Note:**

> did you know you can find me on [tumblr](http://sandpapersnowman.tumblr.com/ao3direct)? : O


End file.
